


Afterburner

by ladygrange



Category: Led Zeppelin
Genre: Bets & Wagers, F/M, Multiple Orgasms, Oral Sex, and i suppose in my other writing as well, and the irony i'm struck w/ is that i cannot remember what the phrasing was, and the one with the postcards!!!, except that memory has played enormously in my fic writing, i love love that pic where he's sound checking and it's hung on a mic stand, i wrote something in these tags about memory, is it a rich vein, running throughout, this piece is homage to that theme and that thick knit sweater jp wore in 73
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-11-24 12:18:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20907545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladygrange/pseuds/ladygrange
Summary: the galerie birch press party and its aftereffects.edit on 10/5/19: i took this down to tweak some bits i wasn't happy with, as well as some edits for smoothness. but the essential narrative remans the same <3





	Afterburner

Galerie Birch - Copenhagen, Denmark - March 1, 1973

“You can tell from the freedom of these borders, the artiste attempts to show man’s wanderlust, his ah, thirst to cross every boundary. Each color is a knight bound for glory who-”

“Robert,” she interrupts his speech with an alarmed look. “Do you hear a word out of your mouth? Or is it a dull hum in there?”

Robert slings an arm around her and offers a crooked smile. “It’s a girlish whine, actually.”

She rolls her eyes at the sight of his missing tooth. 

“Have you still not gone to the dentist? Are you not worried about infection, abscess, being mistaken for a pirate?”

He steers them to a larger painting than the last and grins broadly. 

“I find it charming, love.”

She snorts quietly and investigates the painting. She gathers that the gallery was a flat turned art studio. Though remnants of domesticity remain in the bookshelves lining one wall and the hookups for gas in another corner. Chrome lamp fixtures spotlight each painting, and illuminate groups of journalists gathered in circles and milling about. Most angling for a band member, some speaking in low, reverent tones. Everyone bundled up in coats and sweaters. Which lends the space a coziness, if not a slightly cramped atmosphere.

Robert clears his throat - undoubtedly for another monologue - but she cuts him off quickly. 

“No more commentary, please.”

Robert tisks. “It’s modern art. Why shouldn’t I interpret?”

She purses her lips and tries to get them around a small group of people. “You’re verbally wanking off, Rob.”

His laugh is guileless and startling in the hushed buzz of the room. She gives him a disapproving pinch in the side. That reminds her.

“Aren’t you supposed to be gathered with the others?”

He looks at her askance, a dimple lurks in his cheek. Sly insinuation. She regrets her question.

“Never mind,” she adds.

Robert wheels around, grinning again. “Want me to see what they’ve asked him so far?”

She tries for nonchalance, feigning interest in another painting. 

“Christ, this one’s expensive,” she remarks, even as blonde frizz pokes in her peripheral. “Still wet, too.”

“The best ones are, love.”

She meets eyes sparkling with laughter. “Don’t make me throw you to a journalist.”

Robert merely scoffs at her threat. “Come on, tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“You know what.”

“No.” She crosses her arms. “I don’t.”

“I’ll give you a kiss if you tell me.”

“And hopefully penicillin as well.”

Robert taps his chin as though deep in thought. “Something filthy, I hope.”

“You always hope it’s filthy.”

Another grin, salacious and ridiculous at once. “Cause it usually is.”

She takes a breath for patience, a step back for composure, and a quick scan of the room for Jimmy. He’s occupied at the bookshelves, rifling through a collection of records. A can of beer in one hand, hair come out of its curl in loose, tousled confusion. She bites the corner of her lip to avoid thinking of how it's gotten to that state. How she’d taken that absurd bet.

“Tell me.”

She jumps at Robert’s sudden proximity. 

“Clearly this weather has robbed you of all good sense, Robert. I suggest you find another audience, and maybe -”

“Percy!” Peter steps between them with a happy nod to her and a rough clap on Robert’s shoulder. “Got a bird wants to meet you. She writes for a youth magazine here in Copenhagen.”

Robert’s crestfallen look transforms into a sardonic one. “If I tell her to publish a statement on the evils of firecrackers, you think it’d get across?”

Peter chuckles. “Could do.”

Robert props his fingers in his pockets and shakes his hair out, winking at her.

“Wish me luck.”

“You don’t need it.”

Turning away with Peter, he offers her a parting shot. “Good luck with your bet.”

She pretends not to hear, though her face heats. Instead, she parks herself in front of another canvas. It depicts a swirling chaos. Though, she tilts her head thoughtfully, there might be a parrot’s head, or a creature in flight. Possibly a phallic symbol, though, she frowns, that’s what she gets for perusing the gallery with Robert. Soon, she gets lost in the vortex of color and texture. Paint stands so thick on the canvas it casts shadows. Zoned out in front of the image, lost in thought, she barely notices a familiar form beside her.

“How long have you been standing there?”

“Not long,” John Paul replies casually. “Fascinating art. Glad Pagey’s arranged to have the press conference here. Not stuffy like the usual table and crowd setup.”

“Hm.” She scans him, his black, fleecy coat makes him look like a bear, its volume up to his neck and almost obscuring his face. She smiles. “You look warm.” 

“Bloody freezing out.”

He lifts a piece of food to his mouth and she notices a bundle of parchment in his hand. Warm cinnamon roll greets her nose upon closer inspection.

“Where’d you get that?”

“Popped down to a shop at the corner.” He takes a bite. “Excellent pastries. Care for some?”

She declines with a wave. “How did you manage that? I thought you were answering questions for a paper.”

John Paul shrugs, unconcerned, munching happily. 

“I think I might buy this one.”

She gives him, then the painting, an unconvinced look.

“On account of your being drunk or suddenly a purveyor of modern Danish art?”

He grins and finishes the pastry off. “Bonzo suggested it, warms one up nicely.”

“Since when do you take his advice?”

Brows raised, John Paul counters, “Since when are you a betting woman?”

Her expression closes on a scowl. She backs up to the wall next to the painting.

“It’s not a bet.”

“Well then, what’s Percy on about?”

She forces an even tone. “I don’t pretend to know.”

Jonesy chuckles and presses her to his side. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll win. Whatever it is.”

“That’s not...”

“Ah, Peter’s giving me that look. Got to run, I’ll send Jimmy over as soon as I can.”

He folds back into the circulating crowd. She pities whoever has the misfortune to interview Rob, drunken by nature, and John Paul, drunken by design and driven by his pursuit of baked goods. She looks over her shoulder to find Jimmy watching her. Completely ignoring the photographer who'd helped arrange all this. She’s snagged for a long second.

On the sweatshirt, black to melt with his hair, and the sweater, green to set off his eyes. The belt loose at his sides; she recalls tugging him toward her with that. His smile as he’d given her kiss after kiss. Each a bit sloppier, more involved than the next. She’s ripped from that thought at the smile tinging his lips, gaze gone knowing as he tips his drink back. She looks away too quickly and floats casually as she can to the bar for a Perrier.

Unfortunately, the cap won’t come off. She struggles for an unnecessary moment. Until her palm is creased with angry marks. She’s about to give up when an arm reaches from behind her to twist the cap off with ease. The same hand presses the bottle back to her, fingers lingering over her knuckles. 

She wants to give in to the heat of his body. But she takes a drink instead. Lips graze her cheek and she tenses at the brush of his nose, his face briefly in her hair, breathing in. 

"Hello, darling."

She narrows her eyes at the opposite wall. "Shut it."

"Good evening to you as well,” Jimmy says. 

She can detect the smile in his voice. Biting her cheek, she scans the room. 

"Who sent you?"

Jimmy breathes a laugh behind her. “Why would anybody send me?”

“I hear the Danish post is terribly efficient.” She fiddles with the Perrier’s peeling sticker. “Rates not too high either.”

“Really?” His tone is blasé. “And where am I going, my darling? Not too far, I hope, with a gig tomorrow. They might notice I’m gone.” 

“Well that’s just your cross to bear, Jimmy.”

“You’re a very sore loser, my darling.”

Jimmy tugs the bottom of her hair, and she turns to find him close, gazing down at her with with a smile and crinkled eyes. He’s disposed of his can and holds a bottle of beer, fingers wrapped around the neck.

“You’re much too pleased, Jimmy.”

His smile wavers for a moment, eyes flickering. “It’s pleasing to win.”

She winds the bit of loose thread hanging from his lapel around her pointer finger. 

“Were they intrusive?” she asks, removing the piece of thread with a smart yank.

His expression is shuttered but telling. 

“Is that a ‘no comment’?”

Jimmy’s lips twitch. “Take a walk with me, darling.”

She shakes her head. “No, not until you tell me who’s right.”

His smile breaks across his face and she bristles. Takes another sip. 

How they’d arrived at this settlement, she can’t fully recall. It’s interrupted by his naked chest against her back, long fingers buried between her thighs. She’d attempted in vain to get them both ready in time. Three orgasms, he’d whispered, while nimbly working her swollen clit and thrusting languidly inside. Each with a different part of his body. That is, if she was wrong about this particular press party.

If every journalist, newspaper writer, and magazine stuck to the upcoming LP, and the shows in Denmark, then she’d win. The way he’d scraped his teeth along her neck, voice smug, had married the reckless part of her that wanted to be right always. So, she’d taken the bet. Not before Jimmy had sucked his fingers clean of her orgasm and stated that was one out of the three. She watches the same fingers twined gracefully round the bottleneck. 

She should’ve bribed him another way, an enticement that didn’t include risque bets and one, in retrospect, that was bound to lose. She chews her lip and continues staring at his hand.

“Emmaline, are you listening?”

She ties her thoughts back to the present moment, to the odd grammar of his gaze. Eyes soft and searching. His lids are full from good rest and a month offstage. Cheeks rosy from the cold. Hair pushed back from his forehead. All of it a familiar language. 

“What did they ask you?” 

“Well, they didn’t ask about the shows, darling. And there hasn’t been time to talk about Showco or any of the lasers right now so that was never going to come up.” He pauses, expression creased in thought. “And let’s see, nobody here knows about the censure in America for Houses. Is that enough? You want me to continue?”

“So if I went over there asking for a transcript, there would be no questions about the new LP?”

“They’d be more likely to ask you a question,” Jimmy says, frowning, clearly remembering an unpleasant exchange. 

“Like what?” she asks carefully.

“The usual,” he says, tone clipped. 

That leaves a few handy topics, each more private and personal than the last. Each side steps the main event: music. She keeps his gaze, patient and steady, until he takes a swallow of beer and blows out a frustrated sigh. 

“Someone had the nerve to ask me if the woman in the sage dress was a sacrifice of mine.”

She breathes a laugh. “I should be so lucky.”

Jimmy reaches for her hair and fingers the ornate symbol of her earring. His tone is hushed, brows pulled in.

“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”

“What do you mean?”

He continues with her earring, eyes set on the place where her neck meets her shoulder. She smoothes her hand over his outstretched arm, squeezing the thick wool gently. 

“They were likely joking,” she adds in a gentling tone. “About the sacrifice bit.”

“Doesn’t exactly bode well, my darling. Though I did get to chat about art for a bit.”

“Good, I’m glad.”

It seems, for a time, that everyone might’ve slipped from the gallery. That they might be the only two left. That he eventually meets her eyes and smiles a little, warm and with his thumb brushing over her chin. She wants to press on, discover what else had upset him, but the silence bursts.

“Pagey,” Robert lengthens his vowels as Bonzo appears beside him. “You’re needed.”

“G wants us over on that couch for a radio something or other,” Bonzo adds, cigarette fixed in his mouth. If possible, he sounds more drunk than both Rob and Jonesy combined. 

“Alright,” Jimmy says giving her a last, significant glance. “I’ll see you.”

She nods. 

“Shouldn’t be too long,” Robert says.

“Will if you do all the talking, Percy,” Bonzo says, grinning. 

They turn away, stumbling a bit, bickering over nonsense. She suspects it will take longer than usual. 

She fits the key into the lock and glances at Jimmy. “Will you please tell me what happened?”

He ushers her inside the suite and takes her hand. Presumably for the bedroom, but she plants herself beside the entrance, one hand anchored on a side table. A painting of vibrant yellow daisies hangs above her head. Jimmy had picked this room for its splashes of bright color, and the view. Knowing she’d fancy the windows immediately. 

“Everything’s alright.” he insists quietly. 

“Ah, but it’s not really,” she says. “Because you haven’t fully looked at me since we got in the car and I could’ve sworn I heard Peter mention phoning a lawyer.”

Jimmy tugs her hand but she steels herself and tries to bring him closer. 

“I want you to tell me, not because I’ll be upset or angry, but because it’s clear you’re preoccupied. And with the way you hustled me out of there, most of the guests were still present, mind you, I can’t help my concern.”

“I didn’t hustle you,” he says stiffly, reluctantly allowing her to draw him near.

“No?” she says, putting her arms inside his sweater and curling them around his waist. “Well then, what exactly went on a half hour ago?”

His heart thumps against her ear, muted beneath his clothes. 

“We had that month off, but he’s already homesick.”

She nods. “John Henry.”

“The break did him good but it’ll be awhile before we’re done,” Jimmy says. “And there’s always steam, just waiting to be blown off. If hadn’t happened here it would’ve happened elsewhere.”

“If what hadn’t happened?”

He blows out a tired breath. “Messing with some paintings. They’re brand new, you know that, and he mucked about with the wet paint.” Jimmy gathers her hair in a loose fist and rubs it along her back while he talks. “Then photographs were taken, or possibly they weren’t. Peter thinks they were. In any case, he was worried about threats, and damages, and then confiscated the film.”

“Fuck,” she mutters. “That wasn’t wise.”

“No.”

She looks up at him. “Is there nothing that can be done? To mend fences or anything.”

“Not tonight, I’m afraid. Everyone’s either too tense or too drunk.”

She rests her cheek against him with a sound of agreement. 

“It’ll hardly matter in a month or two,” Jimmy says, regret sits under his words, as though he were imagining that next month or two. “They wouldn’t recognize us if we behaved well. To them, we’re barbarians. Not entirely untrue.”

“Not entirely true,” she counters. 

Jimmy takes her cheek and bends for a kiss. She opens her mouth to his tongue but her mind is still in the gallery. Amidst barbed conversations and barely veiled threats. Her shoulders bunch, spine tense in his arms. Jimmy spreads delicate kisses over her jaw, to her ear.

“Be with me.”

“Sorry.” She musters a smile. “Was I not?”

Jimmy pulls back, “No, you’re in your head.”

“And you wouldn’t know a thing about that, would you?”

His eyes crease with a smile. “Not at all, darling.”

“Hmm.”

Her hum disperses into his kiss. Lips open, seeking her. She seeks him in turn - the subtle ridges on the roof of his mouth, the wet abrasion of his tongue, the damp articulation of each kiss. She lets her thoughts drift out. They have no place with the touch on her thigh or the small, stunned noise Jimmy makes when he finds the thatch of curls between her legs. He draws back with a hungry look that she drinks straight to her heart.

“Can I take this off?” Jimmy asks, the hem of her dress between his fingers. 

She nods and he strips her bare against the wall, mouth busy on her throat. Nipping as though to draw out her sounds, make her fingers twist in his hair. Hair soft and spread over her shoulder as he kisses to her breast. Plumping it so that the tip stands up for his mouth. He suckles and rolls his tongue over her nipple, the other caught between two nimble fingers. She moans at the sight of those pink lips wrapped around her breast.

“Please,” she says, hips tilting to his body. “Please, please...”

Jimmy pulls from her breast with a wet pop and sinks to his haunches. His sweater is soft on her bare calf as he hooks it over his shoulder, her other leg stood to the side and Jimmy arm keeping her steady. His fingers make a wet sound when he when he puts them inside. He looks at her with dark eyes, lips shiny and full.

“Like this?”

“Mouth,” she says. “Want your mouth.”

He screws three fingers in and out and kisses the folds stretched around them. Licks the visible wetness flowing from her body and sucks tenderly at her clit. She rocks into his mouth. 

“Close,” she whispers tightly. “Jimmy...”

His name spills out in a mindless, whimpering rush. His head moves to catch the twist of her hips; the little seizes of her muscles around his fingers. Jimmy curls inward to catch the aftershocks. 

His chin gleams in the light. She laps it off him, tasting herself and the slight bristle of his shave. She takes kisses in small bites, never letting him gather her too close. A thread of playfulness curves her lips. She doesn’t want to lose just yet. Jimmy takes her face and inspects it with a smile, though a bit suspicious in the eyes. 

“What’ve you got in your head, darling?”

“Let me ask you a few questions, Jimmy.”

“What?” he laughs faintly. “What do you mean questions?”

She licks her lips and turns from him. Jimmy catches her with an arm around her waist. She wonders how they must look, her nude and hair streaming. Most of her body obscured in his large sweater. Jimmy still clothed and face tucked into her neck. Both of them at a slight angle.

“What types of questions?” he asks, holding her fast.

She grins and pries herself away. “You’ll see.”

She leaps onto the bed and stands at the center, hands on her hips. Jimmy raises his brows, mouth quirking. 

“This is a very unorthodox way of doing things, my darling.”

She shrugs and bounces on the balls of her feet. Jimmy shrugs out of his sweater and tilts his head expectantly. 

“How are you enjoying Denmark, Mr. Page?”

Jimmy laughs at her mock seriousness. “It’s cold but otherwise, no major complaints. You can call me Jimmy, by the way.”

Her lips twitch on a smile. “Well then, Jimmy. How are you and the rest of Zeppelin planning on performing the new album? I hear it’s got a few technical tricks to it.”

“There is the opening number with quite a few guitar tracks to it, lots of layering.” Jimmy takes off his sweatshirt, revealing his flushed chest, and steps closer. “But it’s always exciting for each number to evolve through live performance. Mutate, if you will.”

“Any tracks in particular?” she asks archly. 

“You’ll have to come to a concert and see, darling.” Jimmy catches himself as he removes his shoes. He gives her an apologetic smile through the hair falling in his eyes. “Forgive me, that wasn’t very professional. I didn’t catch your name.”

“Emma,” she says, biting her tongue after she speaks.

“Yes, I think I knew that,” Jimmy says, looking at her intently. “Short for something?”

She nods smartly but continues. “Can you tell me, are you satisfied with the final product of the LP?”

His mouth curves. “Fairly satisfied.”

“But not totally.”

Jimmy shakes his head slowly and strips off his jeans. “I tend to go deaf after listening to playbacks for so long.”

A rift of awareness streaks through her at the sight of him so hard. Erection curved and wonderfully pink. She swallows her mouthful of want and searches for another question.

“Why did you choose Galerie Birch as a venue for the press?”

He runs a hand through his hair and contemplates her shins for a bit. 

“Think about it, rock guitar is a sound distorted. It overloads amps, the mixing desk, all sorts of circuitry. The mediums intended to get it across.” His hands carry his phrases, as though handling the words physically. “Modern art pushes conventions, breaks apart within its confines. Each is meant to provoke.” He smiles at her, a little self-conscious, a little pleased. “There’s two reasons, darling. Now will you come down here?” 

She shakes her head slowly, smile growing. Jimmy heaves a long-suffering sigh. She walks from the center, her steps obscured in the covers, inches from the edge. Jimmy reaches for her calf and strokes her skin.

“Breaks apart within its confines,” she repeats softly. “You’d think it wouldn’t be recognizable after all that transformation.”

Jimmy hums in agreement. “Somehow it is.”

She steps a bit closer, lured into his warm touch. It echoes in her every nerve. 

“Would you know me? Should I be distorted or changed?”

She means to sound playful, her smile still in place. But gazing down at him, his attention rapt, his hands on both her legs, fingers swirling at the backs of her knees where sensitivity reigns, the question grows more serious than intended. 

She should know what comes next. Suddenly disoriented, her footing is gone, the mattress pulled out from under her. Breath knocked out in a startled yelp, torso bouncing on the mattress, hair flung over her stunned expression. With her ankles in Jimmy's grasp, she's slowly tugged to the edge of the bed. To a face quite solemn. 

Jimmy knees her legs apart and stands between them. He brushes her hair back and takes her face in both hands - the heel of his palms meet at her chin. 

"If, by some chance, an omniscient God placed you in another body and placed that body before me, I'd still recognize you. Almost immediately, I'd think to myself, I know that voice. I would know it's you."

Jimmy presses his hands in for a second, a quick pressure - emphatic. His gaze is unwavering. Its own gravity. She can’t look away. Hands shape around her jaw and down her neck. He cups her breasts and thumbs the peaks already made red by his mouth. 

"Does that satisfy the question?"

"Yes," she clears her throat of its tightness. "It does."

Slowly, Jimmy takes her legs and pulls them upright, so that her ankles rest on his shoulders. This presses her shoulders deeper into the mattress, her hips poised in the air and available for him to manipulate as he pleases. To tilt and take him inside. She whines a soft, needy sound and a smile tucks the corner of his mouth.

"And will there be any more questions tonight, my darling?" 

His voice is soft, silky as the touch that parts her. She lowers her gaze to his hips, positioned at the lips of her sex, the tip of his cock visible and leaking between her folds. 

"No," she manages

Jimmy grips her ankles for leverage and inches forward in a liquid glide that makes her fist the covers. She’s wet from orgasm, his saliva, and a fresh wave of need.

“And do you have anything to add?”

"I-” She breaks off on a whimper at the sweet fullness of him. 

“What?” he asks. His hair tickles her toes as it sweeps over his shoulders. Pale and black mingled. “What, darling?”

“Can't...” her throat works. Desire is like a thick glue in her voice. “Can’t think of a thing beyond you. Feels endless."

Jimmy rubs his cheek against her ankle and presses a kiss to the bone. One hand reaches for her clit, fat and hot and straining from his mouth. Now for his fingers, so capable and in perfect tandem with his hips. His arm is wrapped around her knees, making each thrust tight. The sight is erotic beyond belief - Jimmy giving her his cock in a deep, steady rhythm. It reaches a sweet spot inside that makes her neck arch, eyes rolling with pleasure. 

"What else?" Jimmy rasps, going still when she ripples around him.

She's confused, can't focus on the question. 

Jimmy presses deeper. "What else feels endless to you, darling?"

With his thumb skating over her clit, she only shakes her head helplessly. 

He smiles and withdraws. She reaches desperately for his waist, hips, thighs, anything available. The position seems designed for his upper hand. She finds him looking at her intently, jaw held on his question. 

"When you s-say my name," she whispers, brows pulled tight.

An odd confession, she worries the words too feeble for the meaning beneath them. His expression flexes in surprise as he pushes back in. 

"Your name?"

Her mouth opens on a soundless cry, eyes lidded, back arched and so near orgasm. Jimmy leans down, folding her legs between them in the process, to cup her neck, forcing her to meet his gaze.

"Don't know why," she says in a half-moan. 

Jimmy drags his mouth over her collarbone, the divot at the bottom of her neck, to the hinge of her jaw. She tries to turn for a kiss and finds his hands stay her, keep her in place. To kiss over her cheek, to the fragile skin below her eye. 

“Emmaline,” his voice is tender and unraveling. 

All that purpose, she thinks to herself. Intention in every touch. It is remarkable to find the sheet stretched cool under her grasping hand, the air a warm rush from her lungs, his body very close. The slippery friction of him that makes her desperate for release. 

Excitement arcs in her stomach and inspires her to twist away. She catches Jimmy off guard and scrambles across the bed, over the edge. His hand grazes her foot. 

Not a moment later, her struggles easily subdued, her hair caught in her grin, and Jimmy pins her to the rug. Plush on her bare skin, his thighs bracketing hers together, palms braced flat on her shoulder blades. Her breaths blow the hair from her face in quick billows.

“My darling,” Jimmy pants, a bit surprised. 

One hand leaves its place to guide his cock, hot and swollen, to her sex. She knows how dark the tip must be now, knows the way he tastes at this stage, and the thought makes her whine his name. His hand returns to her shoulder and he takes her - punishing, sweet, full. The blue stars woven in the rug blur.

“It this what you want, my darling?” Jimmy asks through gritted teeth

“Y-yes,” her word breaks up on a particularly hard thrust.

It is a relief to surrender to the floor, his hands, her wants. Jimmy angles his hips, searching for that same spot as before, and when he finds it, she ruts back against him. 

Her whimpers turn to cries to sharp little sounds that pierce the air around them. Broken only by the slick-slick of his cock. She gives herself up to it each time.

Sweet and clutching frenzy, no grace to be found in her cheek, which is pressed to the rug, or Jimmy bearing his weight into hers. Only the intense surge of pleasure. She barely manages to meet his thrusts on her orgasm. All rush and release, body wrung out and clasping. 

Through her dizziness, she registers his voice close by, fervent, frantic, full of her name. She grips him in silent eagerness, impossibly wet. His answering groan vibrates on her shoulder, movements sloppy and undone, and then delicious heat. 

They rest together for awhile; his legs enclose hers, her body limp and cooling. Jimmy lingers over the exposed back of her neck, the open corner of her mouth. Wet, lavish kisses where his hands had been on her back. She smiles to herself when he settles with a sigh.

The curtains are drawn from the large plate glass windows - clouds like sheets thrown against the sky, their rumple still intact. She extracts her tingling foot and turns her ankle.

"Emma," he mumbles. 

Already half-asleep, she thinks with a smile. His mouth stretches and yawns against her. 

"Are your legs alright?" Jimmy asks. 

"Tingly," she says. "Move over a bit."

Jimmy obliges her with a gentle groan. “How is it we end up on the floor so much?”

“I’m not sure.” She presses a kiss to the inside of his upper arm. “Convenience?”

“There’s always floors around,” he agrees. His lips melt into a slow, drowsy smile. “Don’t know what we’d do without them.”

She nuzzles into the soft wreck of his hair. “You’re not coherent, Jimmy.”

“It’s good, I think.”

She chuckles at the tired mumble in his voice. “What’s good? The floor, or the sex? Or your incoherence?”

Jimmy considers the question while she reaches for the cover hanging from the bed. Once swaddled, he brings her head to his shoulder.

“All of it.” He finishes with a deep sigh. She feels them muddied in the growing darkness, seeped together. “Just...all of it.”


End file.
